IPUL's Social Media Recap: March 1, 2019

Here are the highlights of our recent activity online. Not all everything is included due to timeliness. If an advertised event already took place, we've left it off.

Pocatello Area: Upcoming Mutt Run and Awareness Celebration

We shared this information: Freedom Reigns proudly presents the first annual “WE Are The Pieces” Awareness Celebration & “Mutt Run” April 6, 2019 Bannock County Fairgrounds “Mutt Run” begins at 10am in the parking lot at BCFG – Bring your fur babies - $20 registration Celebration – 2pm-6pm, Building “B” Bringing the pieces together for: *Autism Awareness* *Child Abuse Prevention* *Down Syndrome Awareness* *Domestic Abuse Awareness and Prevention* *Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention* *PTSD Awareness* Music, food, family friendly activities, and of course the “critters” – Esther and the crew will be there. For more information, questions, accommodations, and registration forms, contact Denise McClure 208-221-9555 – Brandi Shaffer 208-251-5217 – Shayla Andrus 208-406-9636 – Maria Neuman 208-317-6211 – Katie Van Stone 208-547-7791

Where to Find your Parent Center / Family Health Information Center

Did you know....Parent Training and Information Centers (PTI) and Family to Family Health Information Centers (F2F) are found in every state? Idaho Parents Unlimited houses both of these programs for the entire state of Idaho. Other states may have multiple PTIs and may also have separate nonprofit organizations that serve as either the PTI or F2F. If you're looking for these organizations, here are two great links: PTIs:  https://www.parentcenterhub.org/find-your-center/ F2Fs:  http://familyvoices.org/affiliates/

Tools for Life Resource Fair

Taking place at the same time as the Tools For Life conference - Monday March 4, 2019, from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. - is the Tools For Life Resource Fair, which is a free event. Join Tools for Life exhibitors as they share their knowledge and resources to help you and your student(s) have a successful transition out of high school. Location: The Riverside Hotel Aspen Room and Conference event area lobby 2900 W Chinden Blvd Boise, ID 83714

Print Your Art Out!

We shared this from our partners at Wingtip Press:

"Turning printmakers in to buttonmakers at STEP today. Students printed with stencils on Speedball Gel plates with Akua, then cut circles with our Cricut and assembled baskets of buttons for the NAEA vendor fair next month. Another great round of Work of Art with Idaho Parents Unlimited."

What Love Is When You Parent Kids With Disabilities

We shared a great article from The Mighty about what love is when you parent kids with disabilities. Here's a sample: " Love waits in countless waiting rooms of countless doctors for appointments and therapies. Love smiles at the nurses because you need them on your side. Love does not dishonor the knowledge of specialists, it does not point out to the Doctor that you know all the “doctor-ease” they whisper to interns. Love spends sleepless nights researching. Love is a medical advocate. " For the full article click here

Can We Make This A Six-State Initiative?

We think this is a great idea, and would love to see Idaho do a similar thing: "The Council of Chief State School Officers has launched an effort with five states that is aimed at improving principals' knowledge of supporting students with disabilities. The Advancing Inclusive Principal Leadership State Initiative is working with Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio. Partners in the effort include the federally-funded CEEDAR Center (Collaboration on Effective Educator Development, Accountability, and Reform) and the Oak Foundation, a philanthropy that supports students with learning differences." For the full article click here

New Evidence on the Benefits of Arts Education

We shared this from the Idaho Commission on the Arts: "We find that a substantial increase in arts educational experiences has remarkable impacts on students’ academic, social, and emotional outcomes. Relative to students assigned to the control group, treatment school students experienced a 3.6 percentage point reduction in disciplinary infractions, an improvement of 13 percent of a standard deviation in standardized writing scores, and an increase of 8 percent of a standard deviation in their compassion for others. In terms of our measure of compassion for others, students who received more arts education experiences are more interested in how other people feel and more likely to want to help people who are treated badly." For the full article click here

Boise Area: Free Pediatric Urgent Care Open House

Taking place Saturday, March 2, 2019 at 3280 E Lanark St, Meridian, ID 83642: FREE FAMILY EVENT! Come see our new Pediatric Urgent Care clinic before it’s open to the public! Kids of all ages and their grown-ups will enjoy fun activities and awesome giveaways all day. Activity schedule: Teddy Bear Checkups from 10 – 2. Bring your favorite teddy bear, doll or toy for a checkup with our caring Pediatric staff. Spin Art from 10 – 2 Clinic Tours from 10 – 2 Prize and Game Table from 10 – 2 Kids' Yoga Classes with Unity Kids Yoga (15 minute classes) at 10, 10:30, 11, and 11:30. Storytime with Meridian Library at 10:15, 10:45, 11:15 and 11:45 Face Painting from 11 – 1 Balloon Animals from 12 – 2 Kids’ Music Classes with Clara Row (15 minute classes) at 12, 12:30, 1 and 1:30. Giveaways: Need not be present to win! Giveaways will include Children’s Museum of Idaho annual memberships, shopping and dining gift cards, and some amazing kids’ toys courtesy of our neighbor, RC Willey. *No medical services will be available during the event. Clinic opens to the public at 6 AM on Monday, March 4th*

IPUL on the Road: Twin Falls

We travelled to Twin Falls this week to attend the Twin Falls School District Transition Fair, as well as a meet and greet beforehand. Thank you to everyone who came out to meet with us! We will be attending more of these in the future - you can find out all about it on our website's events calendar.

IPUL's Virtual Snow Day 2019 Has a Winner!

IPUL's Virtual Snow Day 2019 is here! Congrats to Tracy Hofius who won this year's Snow Day drawing. Thank you all so much for contributing to IPUL. We hope you have received your cocoa packets, and we hope you are enjoying a break from it all to enjoy your snow day whether virtual or the real white stuff!

Legislative Agenda Information

We've pinned this post to the top of our Facebook page: There are a lot of things happening at the Idaho Legislature each day that they are in session (typically from January through March.) Did you know that you can access the daily agendas on their website? You can also listen into the committee hearings that stream live. Idaho Parents Unlimited pays close attention to the House and Senate Health and Welfare and Education committees but you may interested in hearing about agencies, proposed rule changes, and other legislative action as well. With busy schedules and proximity - not everyone lives in the Treasure Valley - shocking! - this is a great way to stay on top of things no matter where you are. Daily agendas are found here:   https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/agenda/ Live streaming of hearings are found here:  http://idahoptv.org/insession/leg.cfm

We want you to update your preferences!

You can now tune your email preferences! We want to be sure you are getting the mail from us that matters to you. Currently if you are on our mailing list (and if you are reading this, you are) you are getting everything we send out... However we know that not everyone wants to see everything we send out, so we are making it easy to tune your preferences. If you scroll to the very bottom of this mailing you will find a link that says "update profile" clicking this will launch a page where you can update your information, and choose what mailings you will receive from us in the future. You will be able to deselect or select to be on the newsletter list, the social media update list, or the announcements list. If you are happy with getting everything, then you don't have to do anything, you are all set. But should you want to adjust what we send you, that is now possible.

IPUL's upcoming statewide trainings:

Next statewide training:

March Statewide Training:  Getting and Keeping the First Job     Broadcast Live from the Boise office and interactive statewide via webinar platform.   Getting and Keeping the First Job  Wednesday, March 13, 2019, 5:30 - 7:00 pm MT Participants will learn about the importance of employment for all and its particular impact on people with disabilities. The critical role of families and engaging youth in career planning as well as maintaining high expectations of youth are included. Basic job search activities as well as skills that help youth with disabilities keep the jobs they get. Again, we welcome people who want to attend the training in person at our Boise office. (Please plan to be in the office at least by 5:20 p.m.)  People attending remotely via our simulcast webinar will only need to have a modern web browser to attend. (And you can do that via computer, smartphone, or tablet)  You will receive a confirmation email, but it won't have the link to the webinar just yet. We are changing to a new webinar platform. As soon as we have that, you will have a follow-up email with the link to attend via webinar,  even if you are planning to attend the training in our Boise office in person.

Register Here

IPUL's Webinar Library:

Just a reminder that we have changed how we present our webinars - rather than a live webinar, will be releasing a series of shorter, prerecorded modules on the same topic as our statewide training. The idea being that once we put them up, they will remain available for anyone to register to see and watch at their leisure. You can find them here on our website:  https://ipulidaho.org/webservids Our next topic will be Getting and Keeping the First Job, anticipated to be available on 3/28/19